There's an interview with Karl-Magnus Troedsson on AusGamers talking about Battlefield 3, DICE's upcoming military shooter sequel (thanks Ant via Planet Battlefield). They touch on previous indications that the game will not have tools for modifying or creating game content, as EA/DICE's Patrick Söderlund recently explained: "Cause if you look at the Frostbite engine, and how complex it is, it's going to be very difficult for people to mod the game. Because of the nature of the set up of levels, the destruction, and all those things, it's quite tricky, so we think it's going to be too big of a challenge for people to make a mod." When asked about lack of mod support, Troedsson indicated that while BF3 will not ship with mod tools, they have reconsidered their stance on this, and it's not out of the question that they will come at some later point, though he also offers reasons why this still might not happen:

We have to make conscious decisions about what we actually do put into the game and what that actually gives us back. What that gives the players back that actually play the game. We have heard the community very loud and clear on this topic -- that they want mod tools. We are considering it, back in the studio. The game won’t ship with mod tools, but we have heard it. I’m not saying that we’re going to do it, I’m saying that we are thinking about it.

But the reasoning behind it is as well, is that at DICE, we are very committed to quality and innovation when we do something. So if we do mod tools, we really want to do it right. It can’t just be some hack that we throw together and people have to reverse engineer it and do all these kinds of stuff. It needs to be a very proper tool that people can use and that’s not a small thing to do.

There’s also a security risk behind all of this. It means that we need to open up our precious game and let people just tear around in it in whatever way. I would love to do this, but there’s a lot of things we need to consider in the background before we can make the decision if we want to do this.

Did they cure the horrible online hacking in BFBC that was killing BF2?..

Cheating was never addressed in BFBC2, and it is rampant. They don't care about their games, they just turn and burn. Would it surprise anyone if there is content on the disc that ends up being DLC? Probably not.....

Naw, even with the mod tools they'll still get plenty of people to buy DLC map packs. Ranked play only counts for "official maps" and people are hooked on their stats in Battlefield games like junkie is to his crack pipe.

Wait what? Admittedly I only played BF1942, but Desert Combat? That mod was basically bought by DICE, then converted into BF2, which sold truckloads.

Let's say they release BF3 toolset and Forgotten Hope mod or similar gets their hands on it and does their usual amazing job with it. DICE can then purchase that content and go back to gritty WW2 setting with full realism for BF4. Easy win, fantastic game. Not doing it doesn't make any sense.

Why would they NOT want all that input from creative community members, which they can subsequently harvest for free for their next title?

Cutter wrote on Sep 1, 2011, 18:29:And allow people to produce content that people won't have to pay for and slow sales up on the annual Battfield X crap? Never happen. For them to string people along like this is really, really shitty of them. Just another in a long list of reasons I don't support those douchebags.

That's the way I look at it. I think DICE would like to, even given how much more complex supplying working SDK's is nowadays as compared to the DOOM days, but they are powerless against the will of their overlords.

Incidentally that's how I feel concerning the disastrous Dragon Age 2 - I'm betting that Bioware would have much preferred to do a true sequel to Dragon Age, but their overlords didn't want to wait to milk the cash cow long enough to allow for a proper development cycle.

“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” - Mahatma Gandhi

And allow people to produce content that people won't have to pay for and slow sales up on the annual Battfield X crap? Never happen. For them to string people along like this is really, really shitty of them. Just another in a long list of reasons I don't support those douchebags.

LittleMe wrote on Sep 1, 2011, 17:05:What's ironic to me is that I'd bet most people would pay a reasonable DLC-like fee to let their client use community-created mod content. That's not a too unreasonable request to help DICE justify the associated expenses of developing the tools. But even still, they'd sell more games if it was modable anyway. Modding helps the gaming industry as a whole in many ways and DICE knows this.

Did you just type what I am reading as "paying for user made mods?"

They will make money off the Consoles with their own DLC... Leave the superior PC master race alone!

I was kinda excited for BF3, til I tried the alpha and realized sniping consists of nothing more than firing at orange triangles that you can't even see the person yet still can kill them. At that point any desire I had to buy it left quite quickly.